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Should I tell her how I feel? That she could but more effort into restoring our marriage? OR just stay on the new 180 degree plan A?


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HLR, I think you must just tell her in a calm and self-assured voice that:

1. Your know about the enclosed e-mail,
2. are very disappointed about it
3. and have serious doubts about her commitment to you and the M because of that

You can also tell her that the fact that she didn’t share this information with you, show you that:

1. you can’t trust her yet
2. that she hasn’t yet started to be TOTALLY honest & open with you about EVERYTHING.

Tell her this is unacceptable behavior and hurtful towards you. Tell her this in a calm manner and then turn around and walk away. Don’t engage in arguing, LB’ers etc. afterwards. Just state what you know and leave it at that. This should make her think and wake her up...

Remember, plan A and 180 doesn’t mean that you can’t state the facts and state how you feel about it. As long as you do it in a calm, self-assured way without LB’ers, it’s in line with plan A etc.

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Thanks again Suzet* and ML,

If I tell her I know, she’ll hide her tracks better next time. I would rather find a way of telling her what I need without exposing one of the only ways I have left to check on her. When I told her I could see how often they where communicating right after D-day the calls immediately stopped! That could be because she told him to stop or they started to use business phones? Obviously I would like to believe her but I feel I must verify what I can, so I know how committed she is.

Another concern of mine is she has a business trip scheduled for the end of this month; she is going with several individuals from her place of employment for four days to another location. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had some concerns about her trip and she got sad and upset. She is always going to have these trips and now I feel it gives her another opportunity to fall back and rekindle something? NO the OM is not going to be there and if he where seen there it would raise other concerns within their company. But even with that said it doesn’t change how I feel!

Another question I have is that she hasn’t seen him since June; I know I was there and she told me their last intimate contact was March. She stopped phone contact with him in July; I’m not sure how this plays into her withdrawal? September is 6 months from intimate contact and I was hopping that was a significant milestone, is it?

Guess I’m still sorting out my feelings, Thanks for all of your help!!!


Help Less Romantic, Confused but still in Love!

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HLR~

Before I began posting this, I said a prayer that you would be able to use the advice given to you here to allow you to be more objective in your situation...It is so hard to see what others can see when you are so close...use all that you are getting here to try and gain clarity.

I am going to try and shed some light on your situation by using my experience as a FWW. I so HATE that an A is forever part of my life story, but I pray that I can use this to at least help someone else, so here goes...

EXPOSE! EXPOSE! EXPOSE! EXPOSE! No matter how much I type this I can never impart to you how important that it is! DO NOT worry that your wife will be mad...if you don't expose and bust this up, this A has a chance to survive and your marriage does not. Your wife's anger is NOT a threat to your marriage, the continuation of the A is the nail in it's coffin, however. Anger, your marriage can survive...your marriage cannot and will not survive an ongoing affair. FIGHT for your marriage...this is LOVE and WAR, and of course you KNOW that "all's fair in love and war". Of course she doesn't want you to expose right now...none of us "fence riding cake eaters" want you to mess up fantasyland! You have to slam this unrealistic situation with harsh doses of reality and daylight...affairs are so bathed in idealism, because they don't involve real life problems...you have the power to change this...DO IT!

Exposure will actually help your wife to decrease the amount of withdrawal time after the affair...let me explain this concept by using an example from my own story...

D-day for us was April 26, 2005...my h had only begun to read this site and was uncertain of all of it's principles, so anyway, up until D-day, I had only seen the OM a handful of times(he was out of state). I am not proud of this at all, but I was still so determined to continue the A, and I told my h this. He stood by while I planned a two week trip for May to go and see the OM in a hotel...complete fantasyland vacation. That's exactly what I did, and I got so much deeper in to the A...If my H would have exposed to OM's parents(he was divorced and currently living back at home) or his work, I know for sure that the A would have ended IMMEDIATELY. That would have saved so much damage and hurt to both my h and I...yes I would have been SOOOO...MAD, but the fog would have eventually lifted, and I would have gotten over it as soon as reality set in. Take this for what it's worth, but I SWEAR I would have eventually thanked my husband for saving me and us the extra damage that I did in those two weeks...Please do all that you can on this, HLR. The fact that you were willing to fight for her, will eventually be seen as so sexy and heroic...

Don't concern yourself with her defense of the OM...part of that comes from a sophomoric need to defend her choice of "boyfriend"...don't you remember how in high school, that if someone said something negative about who you were dating it was viewed as an attack on your own fledgling self-esteem? So silly...don't let it concern you...once you bust up the affair, this defensiveness will fade quickly, she'll eventually see OM is the harsh light of day...

As far as her not regretting being with OM goes, though this may be hard for you to accept, your W is having some of her EN's met by OM, and that feels good...your job is to get rid of OM by busting up the affair so that you can fill those EN's...Trust me, once you start filling them, she will see that the OM was a VERY POOR SUBSTITUTE for you...EX: One of my EN's was affection...last night while my H was holding me close, I was so overcome with how false the feelings for the OM were compared to the real closeness and love that I felt towards my h as he was meeting that need for me. Tears came to my eyes when I told him that it was from him that I wanted this all along...I just kept telling him how sorry I was and how much I loved him...I have NEVER experienced feelings that real in my entire life...The OM was such a flimsy replacement for my wonderful h. Allow this to happen in your M...bust up that relationship, business or otherwise...

Now on to your wife's "independence" issues...I'm just guessing here based on my experience, but could it be that one of your wife's EN's is admiration? In my A, the OM constantly recognized things like my intelligence and capablities...that made me feel so good about myself. I now know that my h thought/thinks the same things about me, but just took for granted that I knew this...not sure that that applies to you, but I just thought I'd throw it out to you anyway...

HLR, I hope this post gives you something that you can use in your struggle...know this, you are "fighting the good fight", keep it up, and let folks here help you in any way that you need...KEEP TAKING CARE OF YOU HLR!!!

Mrs. Wondering


FWW ~ 47 ~ Me
FBH ~ 50 ~ MrWondering
DD ~ 17
Dday ~ 2005 ~ Recovered

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Now on to your wife's "independence" issues...I'm just guessing here based on my experience, but could it be that one of your wife's EN's is admiration? In my A, the OM constantly recognized things like my intelligence and capablities...that made me feel so good about myself. I now know that my h thought/thinks the same things about me, but just took for granted that I knew this...not sure that that applies to you, but I just thought I'd throw it out to you anyway...

Mrs. Wondering

You hit this one right on the head!

She is constantly saying no one is taking her seriously or seeing how affective she is in her job and the company’s future! She has said that the new COO has expressed his feeling that she is doing a great job, but she thinks he lacks the vision and resolve that the former COO had, oh that would be who...the OM. I personally have know the new COO for about fifteen years and find him very competent maybe not as driven as my W, but like I have told her Work supports your life not the other way around. She is an extremely driven individual and feels she is constantly proving herself.

So what do I do about her need for affection, other than listen? This is where I think in the past I have failed miserably, I would listen to her and often offer her advice thinking I would need to provide a solution to her issues…when I should have just been there as her friend listening! Today I make sure that when she is talking that I stop what I’m doing and pay complete attention to her.

That has paid off real well, in the past we would often watch to much TV at night just relaxing for the stressful day. Now we have been just sitting outside talking in the evening or going for walks. She has even decided to decorate our sunroom with a café style table so we can still enjoy our relaxing time when the weather turns bad!

So based on her recent comments I know things are better, but if you have other ideas for her affection let me know…I’ll try and blend it into my current 180 degree plan A!


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GREAT NEWS….I saw my W outlook calendar and the OM’s Birthday is gone! Not sure why she decided to delete it, but it sure made me happy!

The best part is she doesn’t even know that I knew it was there!!!


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This is where I think in the past I have failed miserably, I would listen to her and often offer her advice thinking I would need to provide a solution to her issues…when I should have just been there as her friend listening! Today I make sure that when she is talking that I stop what I’m doing and pay complete attention to her.


The fact that you recognize this is great! Something that my H always does in our conversations is empathize...when I tell him something, he will always say something like, "Yeah, and I bet that made you feel, yada, yada,yada." Not only does this make me know that he's listening, but that he understands what I'm saying...you just can't know how validating that is! Give this a try HLR, I think you'll find that it will (eventually...baby steps) lead to your wife wanting to be affectionate towards you. Anything that you can do to make her see things from a "me and you" perspective will help to rekindle the homefront fires. Be patient, keep making you better and better...she will notice, I promise...nothing needy or clingy...quiet confidence and understanding...I'm reminded of a quote from a great book here, "Take the first step, no more, no less, and the rest will follow." A Rich Man's Secret by Ken Roberts

Mrs. Wondering


FWW ~ 47 ~ Me
FBH ~ 50 ~ MrWondering
DD ~ 17
Dday ~ 2005 ~ Recovered

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HLR,

As Mrs. Wondering put it so eloquently, if you want to fight for your wife then you NEED to do the 180. This may just scare some sense in to her. She is in this fog deep… so deep I fear, she may not come out without drastic measures. She may have stopped all contact (on her end) but she is not doing anything to persuade/prevent him to call her. And it sounds like, she is still getting that EN over the phone so in a sense the A is still going on even though there is physical NC. It sounds like yes; she’s initiated (physical) NC for you. Not for her. She needs to see the OM for what he really is but right now she can’t and does not want to. Because right now, he is her “fantasy man”. And in her head, he is “the man of her dreams”. She will be asking herself “How can a give him (that) up??” This will be a very hard hurdle for her.

IMO… I think the reason why she has not been responding to ANY of the help you’ve been providing is because in her mind the A is still going on and does not want ANYTHING to screw that up. So, what does she do?

1. Refuse to read anything bad that’ll persuade her thoughts towards the OM.
2. Still continue to take the OM’s calls.
3. Does not want to talk about the A at all with you.
4. Wants to “just forget about it” and continue on with her normal life and does not want you to do anything that’ll disrupt that.
5. Does not you to remind her of what she did to you, because that would bring bad feelings towards the A.
6. Does not want you to do anything “nice or loving for her” because that’ll cause guilt. Again, that would bring bad feelings towards the A.

By doing this 180, you’ll be forcing her to MISS YOU. She may see this but not right away. You need to tell her you will no longer let this A bother you and appear to go on with your life. Ohhh this’ll pi$$ her off.. and, you know what?? Enjoy that. Take a little satisfaction out of it. But tell her you are willing to do this to save your marriage. And she will see how much she loves you and misses you. Do not cater to her by doing the day to day house things… let her do it… let her feel what it might be without you.

You need not only to do this for your marriage but for you as well. You need to have clarity; you need to get your life back to some normalcy and you need to get your wits about you again. You owe this to your marriage and yourself. We all know you can do this HLR, have some faith in yourself.

Undo


Wish I could "Undo" what "he" did...
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ms wondering...i wish you would read my thread and give some insight.

things that you say really hit home with me...like

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"seemed needy and unattractive" to me. That sounds so harsh to me now, I really hate that I ever felt that way, but it was my reality at the time. I remember telling him to "back off"


this is why i'm asking!

ps..sorry to mini-hijack here

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Although I do think by deleting his birthday she is having some second thoughts…I would have hopped for a little deeper remorse, like her checking into this website or getting me a romantic card or a gift to show her love. Might just be wishful thinking.

Guess I can’t hope for everything all at once.


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It'll come HLR, remember YOU can only change YOU...keep doing things for YOURSELF to improve YOU...this is YOUR most effective way to affect change for YOUR situation...be a little selfish here, YOU deserve it! Remember...ACT, DON'T REACT...I'm praying very hard for you!!!((((HUGS))))

Mrs. Wondering


FWW ~ 47 ~ Me
FBH ~ 50 ~ MrWondering
DD ~ 17
Dday ~ 2005 ~ Recovered

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Hey that's my line. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />


Me-BH 42 WW - 37 EA/PA Jan-June 2005 Dday April 15, 2005 NC-June 5, 2005 Recovery -so far so good
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Hey that's my line. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Ha! Ha! Ha! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Hi Act(sorry for the slight threadjack HLR)...my h has used that quote for years, I always grin when I read your posts because of that...it really is a great life philosophy, I must admit...Take Care...

Mrs. Wondering

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Any feedback on my other concern that she has a business trip scheduled for the end of this month; she is going with several individuals from her place of employment for four days to another location. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had some concerns about her trip and she got sad and upset. She is always going to have these trips and now I feel it gives her another opportunity to fall back and rekindle something? NO the OM is not going to be there and if he where seen there it would raise other concerns within their company. But even with that said it doesn’t change how I feel!


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The 180 approach would be to act you don't care and to not call her while she is gone. Instead, she will need to call you first. Let it go to VM and then call back later like you were out doing stuff. Also, make sure she thinks you have plans while she is gone.

Of course, if you feel like you can't expose to OMW earlier then while she is gone might be a good time to do it.


Hopeful4future


The character of a person is defined by their actions...not their intentions. Otherwise, the world would be full of Saints.

BS: 40 (Me)
xFWW: 50
Married: 9/97
PA: 3 months
D-Day: 6/30/2005 (she revealed to me)
Divorced: 10/2/2008
Happy that I've moved on
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Dr Harley:

What are the signs of an affair?

Almost everyone denies an affair at first, even when confronted with overpowering evidence. When a woman I counseled broke in on her husband having sex with a neighbor, he tried to convince her that she was having an hallucination.

While seeing your spouse in bed with a lover is sure-fire evidence of an affair, that kind of evidence is usually close to impossible to find. But there are many other less intrusive ways to detect ongoing affairs.

For an unfaithful spouse to engage in an affair without detection, two separate lives must be created, one for the lover and one for the spouse. A certain amount of dishonesty is required in both of them, but the major deception is with the spouse.

So one of the most common clues of an affair is an unwillingness to let a spouse investigate all aspects of life. If two lives are necessary for an affair, and if a spouse is curious enough, the secret second life is relatively easy to discover. Difficulty in getting a spouse to talk about events of the day can be a sign of trying to hide the second life.

One of the most common smoke-screens used by unfaithful spouses is to express shock that their spouse would be so distrusting as to ask questions about their secret second life. They try to make it seem as if such questions are an affront to their dignity, and a sign of incredible disrespect. They figure that the best defense is a good offense, and so they try to make their spouses feel guilty about asking too many questions.

I am a firm believer in letting each spouse do as much snooping around as they want. Nothing should be kept secret in marriage, and no questions should be left unanswered. If a spouse objects to such scrutiny, what might he or she be hiding?

con'd at: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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I kind of failed at 180 degree tonight, My WS called before coming home as usual and showed up late for dinner as usual. After dinner she asked me to go for a walk, on the walk she said guess who called? Yep…I said the OM…

Yes and you know why? Well, I applied for a position at the same company that he works at and used his name a week before D-day. Evidently the division director knows him and decided to call and ask what he knows about me? According to my wife he said he didn’t volunteer any information good or bad. IT was just a convent excuse to call my W. She said well it’s your fault he called, but she knew it was all pre D-Day and told him that. I asked what else they talked about and she said he asked how she was doing but they never mentioned how this affecting their spouses or M, so I asked why, and was told it just easier that way!

Because we were already on the subject I figured 180 degree was out for tonight, so I asked if he tried to setup a meeting? She said the answer was NO. I replied what if he did? The answer would be NO!

Just an update...Not sure what it means?


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HLR, after reading your last post and OM’s contact with your W, I think the most important step you can take right now is to expose to OM's W. But I can sense that you’re unwilling to that because you’re afraid it will drive your W away... You’re also afraid of your W’s anger should she find out about it… Well, I want you to read again what Mrs Wonderings has posted to you yesterday (especially pay attention to the parts I’ve put in bold):

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EXPOSE! EXPOSE! EXPOSE! EXPOSE! No matter how much I type this I can never impart to you how important that it is! DO NOT worry that your wife will be mad...if you don't expose and bust this up, this A has a chance to survive and your marriage does not. Your wife's anger is NOT a threat to your marriage, the continuation of the A is the nail in it's coffin, however. Anger, your marriage can survive...your marriage cannot and will not survive an ongoing affair. FIGHT for your marriage...this is LOVE and WAR, and of course you KNOW that "all's fair in love and war". Of course she doesn't want you to expose right now...none of us "fence riding cake eaters" want you to mess up fantasyland! You have to slam this unrealistic situation with harsh doses of reality and daylight...affairs are so bathed in idealism, because they don't involve real life problems...you have the power to change this...DO IT!

FLR, last year me and another poster was posting to a BH on these boards whose W was still in contact with her OM. We tried to encourage this BH to expose, but he was very resistant. At that stage I was busy reading a book “Pulling your own strings” by Dr Wayne W. Dyer. I posted the following passages from the book to him and I want you to read it too. Here it is:

A NEW LOOK AT STRENGTH

Being strong in no way implies being powerful, manipulative, or even forceful. By operating from strength, I mean leading your life from the twin positions of worth and effectiveness.

You are always a worthy, important human being, and there is never any reason to conduct yourself, or allow others to pull or push you, in any direction in which your basic merit as a human being is challenged. Moreover, in any situation you have a choice between (1) being effective and reaching your goals, or (2) being effective and, ultimately, being restricted from doing what you desire. In most cases – not all, but most – you can be effective, and in all cased, you can operate from the position of your own intrinsic worth as a person.

In dealing with your self-worth, remind yourself that by definition it must come from yourself. You are worthy not because others say so, or because of what you accomplish, or because of your achievements. Rather, you are precious and you say so, because you believe it, and most importantly, because you ACT as if you are worthy.

Being a non-victim starts with the principle of saying and believing that you are valuable, but it is put into practice when you begin behaving as if you are worthwhile. This is the essence of strength, and of course, of not being a victim. You can’t act out of needs to be powerful or intimidating, but you must act from strength which guarantees you will be treated as a worthy person simply because you believe down to your very soul that you do count.

Being effective is not an universal given, as is your own self-esteem. At times you will not attain your goals. Occasionally you will find people irrationally impossible to deal with, or encounter situations where you’ll have to back off or compromise to avoid being further victimized. You can, however, cut these “losses” down to an unavoidable minimum, and more important, you can eliminate totally the emotional upsets of being thwarted now and then.

Being effective simply means you apply all your personal resources and use all available strategies, short of stepping on others, to achieve your objectives. Your own worth and personal effectiveness are the cornerstones of operating from strength.

Keep in mind that a breakdown of the word invalid, meaning a physically weak person, comes out in valid. By living your life from a position of emotional weakness you are not only a loser most of the time, but you virtually invalidate yourself as a person. “But”, “you must ask, “why would I ever do a thing like that to myself?”

FEAR: SOMETHING THAT RESIDES IN YOU

Most of the reasons you’d give yourself for not operating from strength involve some kind of fear of “what will happen if…”. You may even admit that you are often “paralyzed by fear.” But what is it that you think comes from somewhere out of the blue and immobilizes you? If you started on a scavenger hunt today and you were told to bring back a bucket full of fear, you could look forever, but you’d always come home empty-handed. Fear simply does not exist out there in the world. It is something that you do to yourself by thinking fearful thoughts and having fearsome expectations. No one in this world can hurt you unless you allow it, and then of course you are hurting yourself.

You may be victimized because you’ve convinced yourself that some person won’t like you, or that some disaster will befall you, or that there are any of thousands of other excuses, if you do things your way. But the fear is internal, and is supported by a neat little system of thoughts which you cleverly use to avoid dealing directly with your self-imposed dread. You may express these thoughts to yourself in sentences like the following:

I’ll fail
I’ll look stupid
I’m unattractive
I’m not sure
They might hurt me
They might not like me
I’d feel too guilty
I’ll lose everything
They might get mad at me
U might lose my job
God won’t let me into heaven
Something bad will probably happen if I do
I know I’ll feel awful if I say that
I won’t be able to live with myself.

Thoughts like these betray and internal support system and maintain a fear-based personality which keeps you from operating from strength. Every time you reach inward and come up with one of these fear sentences, you’ve consulted your weakness mentality, and the victim stamp will soon be evident on your forehead.

If you have to have a guarantee that everything will be all right before you take a risk, you will never get off first base, because the future is promised to no one. There are no guarantees on life’s services to you, so you’ll have to toss away your panicky thoughts if you want to get what you want out of life. Moreover, almost all your fearful thoughts are purely head trips. The disasters you envision will rarely surface. Remember the ancient sage who said, “I’m an old man, and I’ve had many troubles, most of which have never happened.”

The brilliant English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once wrote,

All fear is painful, and when it conduces not to safety, is painful without use – Every consideration, therefore, by which groundless terrors may be removed, adds something to human happiness.

Johnosn’s words are still vital some two hundered years after he wrote them. If your fears are groundless, they are useless, and removing them is indispensable for you happiness.

EXPERIENCE AS AN ANTIDOTE TO FEAR

You cannot learn anything, undermine any fear, unless you are willing to DO something. Doing, the antidote to fear and most self-defeating behavior, is shunned by most victims who operate from weakness. But the maximum of education that makes the most sense to me is:

I hear: I forget
I see: I remember
I Do: I understand


You will never know what it feels like to get rid of a fear until you risk behavior that confronts it. Just as no one can teach you fear, no one can teach you not to be afraid. Your fears are your own unique sensations, and you alone are going to have to challenge them. You just have to get out there, grovel around, fail a lot, try this, change that – in a word, experiment. But can you really imagine that experimenting and experiencing, will decrease your wisdom and chances for success? If you refuse to give yourself the necessary experiences, you are saying to yourself, “I refuse to know”. And refusing to know will make you weak and assure your victimization by others.

You can’t know strengths unless you are willing to test yourself - and if all tests always succeeded, there would be no need for them, so you can’t stop testing whenever you fail. When you get to the point where you are willing to attempt anything that seems worthwhile to YOU (not them, you), then you will understand experience as the antidote to fear. Benjamin Disraeli, the witty nineteenth-century English statesman and author, said it quite succinctly in his earlier writings:

Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We cannot learn men form books.

First you think, and then you do, and only thirdly do you know. And that is how you challenge all the timidity that keeps you a victim.

COURAGE: A NECESSARY COMMODITY FOR NON-VICTIMS

Willingness to confront fear is called courage. You will find it very hard to overcome your fears unless you are willing to muster up some valor, even though you will find that you already posses it if you are willing to realize it.

Courage means flying in the face of criticism, relying on yourself, being willing to accept and learn from the consequences of all your choices. It means believing enough in yourself and in living your life as you choose so that you cut the strings whose ends other people hold and use to pull you in contrary directions.

You can make your mental leaps toward courage by repeatedly asking yourself: ”What is the worst thing that could happen to me if…?” When you consider the possibilities realistically, you will almost always find that nothing damaging or painful can happen when you take the necessary steps away from being a knee-jerk victim. Usually you will find that, like a child afraid of the dark, you are afraid of nothing, because nothing is the worst thing that could happen to you. Failing generally means ending up where you started, and while it may not be utopia, it is certainly a situation you can handle. Cora Harris, the American author, said it this say:

The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.

I like the idea of professing courage, because the important thing to do is act, rather than to try to convince yourself of how brave you are or aren’t at any given moment.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR OPERATING-FROM-WEAKNESS DIVIDENDS

Any time you catch yourself paralyzed by fear – in a world, victimized – ask yourself: “What am I getting out of this?” Your first temptation will be to answer, “Nothing”. But go a little deeper and you’ll ask why people find it easier to be victims than to take strong stances of their own, to pull their own strings.

You can seemingly avoid a lot of risks, avoid ever “putting yourself on the spot”, by simply giving up and letting others take control. If things go badly you can blame whoever is pulling your strings, call them bad names, and neatly avoid your own greater responsibility. At the same time you can conveniently avoid having to change; you are “free” to remain a “good little victim”, getting regular dividends of phony approval from the victimizers of the world.

The payoff of weakness almost all come out of your avoidance of risks.
Keep in mind that it is crucial for you to always be appraised of your own reward system, self-defeating though it may be, as you work toward improving the quality of your life in every behavioral and mental dimension.

NEVER PLACE ANYONE’S HEAD ABOVE YOUR OWN

If you are ready to give “operating form strength” a serious go, you will have to stop placing other people above yourself in value and worth. Whenever you give another person more prestige than you give yourself, you have set yourself yup to be victimized.

Strength is a word I used with a great amount of pre-thought. I’ve been careful to define it in explicit terms. Being cantankerous, unruly, obnoxious, deceitful, and the like is not advocated, since it will almost always turn away the very people you want to have help you. I am, of course, supportive of being able to be obnoxious if it is called for on extreme occasions. You just don’t have to be passive or weak as you walk through your life steps, and that is really the fundamental lesson of this chapter. Be a worthy, effective, self-important you, rather than a sniveling permission-seeking victim who believes that everyone is more important than you are.

ISN’T IT IRONIC – PEOPLE RESPECT STRENGTH

If you really want to be respected, take a hard look at those who are so expert at getting respect. You will quickly deduce that you will not gain anyone’s respect, including your own, by operating from weakness. You must set aside the idea that people will not like you if you behave assertively.

Whenever you find yourself standing up for what you believe and wondering what everyone else is thinking, rest assured that if you took a private poll, you would find almost everyone secretly pulling for you, and admiring your attitude of toughness. So not setting your goals according to which ones will win the immediate approval of others may, paradoxically, help you get their approval in the long run – and no one is denying that if feels better to receive approval than to be rejected. It might just be comforting to know that the people whose approval you are most concerned about are much more prone to respect you when you behave from your own convictions than when you simply tag along and do what is expected of you.

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Quote
Being effective simply means you apply all your personal resources and use all available strategies, short of stepping on others, to achieve your objectives.


wow!



Quote
the future is promised to no one. There are no guarantees on life’s services to you, so you’ll have to toss away your panicky thoughts if you want to get what you want out of life. Moreover, almost all your fearful thoughts are purely head trips. The disasters you envision will rarely surface.

Quote
You can make your mental leaps toward courage by repeatedly asking yourself: ”What is the worst thing that could happen to me if…?” When you consider the possibilities realistically, you will almost always find that nothing damaging or painful can happen when you take the necessary steps away from being a knee-jerk victim. Usually you will find that, like a child afraid of the dark, you are afraid of nothing, because nothing is the worst thing that could happen to you. Failing generally means ending up where you started, and while it may not be utopia, it is certainly a situation you can handle.


i keep asking myself "what's the worse that could happen? he already left, he's already in her arms and not mine, he's already said he doesn't love me and he wants a divorce."

the worst HAS already happened!

it can't get worse-it can stay the same or it can get better

i'll take the risks on the chance that it will get better-no matter how small

suzet*
i don't know if you follow my thread-but this is not the first time i have found great words of wisdom to help me that came from you.

thank you


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I’m unsure if exposure isn’t what created some of my current problems. I have spoke to my wife about it and sent the other women a letter but have yet to get a response?


Help Less Romantic, Confused but still in Love!

The story of Help Less Romantic
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